


She that performs first has that merit

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [15]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Dragon Age: Origins Quest - The Arl of Redcliffe, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 01:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16755130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Two women who are slow to trust begin to extend that trust to each other, and forge the beginning of a friendship that might just save them both.  This is that first moment of trust.Title a riff on Thomas Hobbes's "Only a fool performs first, yet he that performs first has that merit."





	She that performs first has that merit

The Warden had returned from her ridiculous sojourn to that prison upon the lake, and Morrigan only paid scant attention as she spoke to the highest of the sheep who called themselves mages.  The whole exercise was farciscal, and she would have said as much if anyone had asked her. But of course, no one had. Caitwyn been too occupied with reaching the castle in time with the Crow, the Bard and the Lout in tow, leaving Morrigan to defend the village should more undead rise.  A thoroughly pointless task, but it had afforded her a modicum of time to further study Flemeth’s grimoire. To study and finally piece together the last of her _mother’s_ —her lip curled in a sneer at even thinking the word—plans for her.

 

As if her current instructions were not vile enough, the threat to Morrigan’s own life decided her course of action.

 

Now the small Warden was back among them, notably bedraggled by her encounter with inclimate weather on her return journey from the Circle, and thus Morrigan was witness to the ensuing bleating display in the receiving hall.  One sheep said this, another said that. It was completely tiresome, and the nattering old woman was the worst with her strident admonishments that she flung at Caitwyn. As the discussion of specifics lingered on, Morrigan thought she detected a line of irritation in the elf’s mouth, a flicker of frustration in those green eyes.  Her hands were held rigidly still, as if she was refusing to betray how the arguments roused her ire.

 

“I made my choice even before we left, and I’ll not be moved from it!”  Caitwn’s voice broke through the clamor, her accent a storm punctuating her words.  “I said I’m trusting Morrigan to do this, and from what I’ve seen she’s better in a knock down drag out fight than the rest of you, and that’s what confronting a demon will be.  A fight.”

 

“She is not Harrowed,” the old, nattering mage objected.  She glanced over one stooped shoulder at Morrigan with clear and obvious frustration.  Morrigan grinned at the old woman, which made Wynne’s frown deepen.

 

“Wynne is correct.  An apostate is at greater risk to—”

 

“Considering what a Harrowed mage did at the Circle, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment,” Caitwyn interrupted the Lead Sheep.  The man sighed and his grey brows drew down, but he said nothing further. The others murmured, all the people Caitwyn had carried along in her wake.  They largely disapproved. The small Warden, however, persisted and stood athwart their disapproval like a titan. “She’s talented, skilled, and not stupid enough to deal with a demon.  And I’m trusting her to act in my stead. That’s. Final.”

 

“Truly?” Morrigan asked, the word leaping from our mouth in sheer startlement over that pronouncement.  Caitwyn was _trusting_ her.  To act as her, what?  Proxy?

 

“Truly,” she replied as she turned to face Morrigan.  The Warden inclined her head, and Morrigan saw behind those eyes was something deeper and more implacable than the ocean.  Perhaps even she was not aware of the strength she had in her. “I’d go if I could, but since I can’t, I’m trusting you to act as I would.”

 

“I will do as you ask, Warden.”  Morrigan kept her voice smooth and even, betraying nothing of her surprise.  It was the most logical track, once this particular route had been decided upon.  Morrigan was more adept at offensive magic than the willing prisoners. As ridiculous as she thought this scheme to be, she could not help a flare of fierce pride that above the mages of the Circle, before the old healer, Caitwyn was placing her trust, her faith, in Morrigan.

 

A foolish thing to do, to grant a trust that Morrigan had not been interested in earning, but the woman did it all the same.  How odd. And yet, something in those eyes compelled Morrigan more than she could easily explain.

 

“Yes, well,” the greybeard sheep in mage’s clothing coughed.  “We had best do this quickly.”

 

“That, old man, is the first reasonable thing I have heard from you,” Morrigan drawled.  That remark set off another round of indignation and grumbling, but Caitwyn did not naysay the point.  Instead, she returned Morrigan’s scrutiny, measure for measure and nodded but once. Morrigan dipped her chin a fraction in reply, and she thought she heard a click as though a gear had fallen into place, or a tumbler of a lock opening.  There was an accord between them now. Not something that Flemeth had maneuvered them both into, but something between Morrigan and Caitwyn that they alone had embarked upon.

 

It would bear examination later.  At the moment, Morrigan had a demon to kill.

 

* * *

 

The crisis was averted, the terrible choice solved; Caitwyn allowed herself to escape.

 

Her legs dangled over the edge of the crenelations, nothing but empty space under her feet.  Up this high, higher than she had ever climbed in Denerim, she thought she could see past the horizon.  In front of her stretched the blue expanse of Lake Calenhad, the sun glinting off the water in the late afternoon.  To her left, right and behind her rose the red cliffs that gave the land its name, and in this place there was a modicum of peace.

 

The boy, Connor, seemed no the worse for what he had been through, a mercy that.  Lady Isolde had been so thankful that she still had her son, and that she yet lived, that she had offered respite in Redcliffe castle itself.  All of them, even the man who had slept in the stables as a boy. Bann Teagan had promised supplies, though they would take some time to pull together, but among those supplies would be tents.  Proper shelter against the elements.

 

A frown creased her brow as her mind turned to the details by habit.  She was trying to calm her mind, not follow down every thread, every possibility at the moment, ensure all was taken care of.  She needed to _rest_ , all the more because the past three days had left her little in the way of restful moments.  What had Sten taught her? Breathe in, breathe out, let her eyes see past what was in front of her and focus on what she could sense.  The hard stone underneath her, the wind tugging at her curls, the scent of the water rising up to meet her even at this height.

 

The discordant caw of a raven.

 

Caitwyn came back to herself to see a massive black bird perched on the stone not far from her.  The birds were not unusual in this area, but the wild ones were very different from the ravens and crows she was used to from Denerim.  Those were smaller, meaner, more like rats than anything else. Rats with wings. The wild ones only approached humans that had shown them kindness, Morrigan had said, while their city cousins harrassed and stole whatever they could.  Caitwyn thought she might be more like the city birds than she’d like to admit.

 

It hopped closer to her, its head cocked to regard her with one yellow eye.

 

“Don’t have any food on me, sorry,” she told it.  Tentatively, she held out her finger, hoping that the bird wouldn’t assume that her finger _was_ food.  It bobbed its head to look at her finger then back up at her with haughty yellow eyes.  It ruffled its feathers and cawed again. Like it was impatient. Or indignant. Caitwyn frowned.

 

“ _Morrigan?_ ”  Her tone was incredulous, and it didn’t even matter that she gave away her shock.  In a cloud of eldritch smoke the witch replaced the raven, sitting just as Caitwyn was with her legs kicking in the empty air.  A dry smirk twisted Morrigan’s lips, but it lacked the smug satisfaction that she was used to seeing in the other woman’s eyes when she pulled her little tricks on other people.  Instead she seemed simply, almost innocently, amused.

 

“I will attribute your lack of perception to an unfortunate state of exhaustion upon your part,” she said airly, and Caitwyn barely refrained from rolling her eyes.  It was like talking to her cousins sometimes, the subtle one-upmanship and slights that lacked real sting. “I wished to have a moment to speak with you, but you are almost adept at disappearing as that Orlesian woman and the assassin.  And your choice of hiding places is uniquely unreachable by most conventional means.”

 

“Sorry to have put you out a bit, but I think there was a compliment in there somewhere.” Caitwyn matched Morrigan’s dry tone, and that earned her an amused huff from the witch.

 

“Perhaps. Though if you are unwilling to speak with me, you have but to say.”  Morrigan tilted her hand back and forth as if to say it mattered not to her. Even though the other woman had sought her out.  Caitwyn sighed.

 

“Morrigan, don’t be mysterious just for the sake of it.  As you said, I’m a mite tired so why don’t you just come out and say it?”  A grumble underscored Caitwyn’s words, and she knew then that she really was tired if she’d shown her irritation so easily.

 

“I do not speak so!” Morrigan snapped.  Caitwyn held her hand up, palm out, in a silent apology for her own irritability, and Morrigan forestalled whatever barb that had sprung to her mind.  With an exaggerated readjustment of her spare, Chasind tunic, Morrigan reasserted her cool demeanor. “You placed your trust in me today. Only a fool extends their trust first, and yet you are no fool.  Thus, t’is possible I can trust you with my… predicament. Though my solution might give you pause.”

 

“One good turn deserves another.”  Caitwyn was unsure what Morrigan was angling at but more than willing to hear her out.  The longer she was with these people, the easier it was to think of them as _her_ people.  Sten and Wynne with their advice and instruction.  Leliana and her stories. Zevran throwing himself against the enemy because she asked it.  Alistair‘s bottomless kindness. And now Morrigan who had risked her life on Caitwyn’s order.  By herself in the Fade to face a demon for a boy she didn't care about. But she’d done it. Softly, she urged, “Go on, then.  Speak your piece.”

 

“I have learned more of what Flemeth plans for me,” Morrigan said, voice as sharp as knives.  “If possible, I would ask that we—specifically you—kill her before she can succeed in her plot.”  Wolf-yellow eyes bored into Caitwyn’s forest-green. The air around the witch crackled with barely restrained energy, and it made the hair on the back of Caitwyn’s neck stand on end.

 

 _Maker’s mercy!_  She’d just saved the life of a mother and her son and now Morrigan was asking to see her mother killed.  In spite of the unnatural drop in temperature around them, Caitwyn risked Morrigan’s wrath by prying as much information from the other woman as she could.  Piece by vile piece, she assembled the picture of how Flemeth planned to use the woman she had called _daughter_ , and Caitwyn’s stomach roiled.  A mother willing to kill her own child?  A mother who saw only her own salvation in the face of the girl she had raised?  Whatever Flemeth was, _that_ was surely an abomination as any demon possessing a human body.  

 

As Morrigan spoke, the venom in her voice hissed and spat, but it was what Caitwyn saw lurking underneath Morrigan’s vicious anger that melted Caitwyn’s hesitation to take on a witch of unknown power.  Hidden behind eyes that flashed with fire and lightning was a tremble in the core of herself that Caitwyn knew well. Fear, sick fear of being used, of being a _thing_ for someone else.

 

A fear and knowledge that sat in Caitwyn’s own stomach like a well of poison.

 

“I’ll help you,” Caitwyn promised, her voice a fierce whisper in the wind.  The others might not understand. She didn’t need them to. Not in this. “No matter what that woman did for us, I’ll not stand for that happening to you.  You have my word.”

 

Morrigan stared at Caitwyn for a long moment, a shock of disbelief running through her body like a jolt to be replaced by a softening of her mouth and the lines of her anger receding from her brow.  In a subdued voice, as if she had not expected even this outcome she said, “Then you—you have my thanks.”

 

Morrigan abruptly snuffed out her lapse into sentiment before Caitwyn could reply.  She resumed her usual haughty distance like a woman pulling a veil over her face and her voice was once again brisk and measured.  “However, you should not attempt such a thing just yet. I can counsel you on how to defeat her and preparations should be made, though sooner would be better before she can enact her treachery.  Now I believe our business is concluded and I shall leave to your solitude, if that is what you wish.”

 

“No, you can stay, if you like.  It’s a beautiful day, and a damn fine view, this.  Never saw anything like this before I left Denerim.  No cause to keep it all to myself.” Caitwyn let her words float like leaves on water, allowing the current to sweep them along.  Morrigan regarded her with a shuttered gaze, opaque even for Caitwyn, but she leaned back on her hands and turned her head to regard the vista as if she were noticing it for the first time.

 

“Very well.  I shall stay, for a time.”  They did not leave until the sun sank below the horizon.


End file.
